Abstract

Abstract The term collective memory refers to group representations of the past that inform action in the present. The original theorist of collective memory is Maurice Halbwachs, who treated collective memory as a central component of a group's collective consciousness. As noted by Jeffrey Olick (2007), Halbwachs's treatment of collective memory had two dimensions. First, he used the term to describe the social origins of individual memory. In contrast to psychological perspectives, which treated memory as an individual phenomenon, Halbwachs argued that all forms of memory, even the most personal, are socially framed. Second, Halbwachs, following Emile Durkheim, treated collective memory as a social fact. Even though they can inform individual memory, collective memories exist independently of individual biography in the form of commemorations, archives, rituals, and other mnemonic practices. In this sense, collective memory is a social construction that embodies a group's identity. The concept of collective memory allows social scientists to describe the way that the constructed past can direct the formation and development of groups and institutions. This also distinguishes collective memory from related terms such as history. Unlike the concept of history, which in some sense stands outside of human action, collective memories are generated by groups and institutions. They orient action in the present, but they also construct the past so as to embody the concerns of the present. For this reason, both the form and the content of collective memory changes across time and place. This is also where collective memory studies overlap with the topic of globalization. As a distinct form of social organization, globalization impacts both the form and content of collective memories.

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